Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle

Last night I managed to watch a recording of a Stewart Lee pilot he’s pitching towards the BBC, courtesy of these guys. The filming took place at the Mildmay Club in Stoke Newington which despite the smoking ban and therefore a lack of warm nicotine haze, managed to give it authentic working man’s club ambience.

Most of the material was taken from Lee’s March of the Mallards/41st Best Stand-up set but thankfully it had been worked on and improved since I saw him perform it at Ginglik earlier in the year. Mercifully it didn’t have that bloody “Oh you would have loved him Stew, he came out, asked this man what he did and he said he was in oil and he asked him - are you a sardine?” twenty minute stretch of anyone’s patience.

One of the best aspects of the show was Lee’s trademark bitterness has resurfaced, as demonstrated by his tirade against “Del Boy falling through the bar” being consistently voted as the funniest moment of all time and speaking into the camera to spit very real vitriol at the imaginary couch-dwellers at the other end.

The only shame was I missed what looked like a Cook’d and Bomb’d mini-meet - I’ve had a lack of uncomfortable silences at Internet meets recently and this would have filled the void nicely. although it would have been a bit weird explaining it to the party I was with - “Sorry guys, I’m ditching you to make awkard comments to that bunch of comedy nerds over there.”

Anyway, fingers crossed this makes it to production. I’d like to see what sketches he’s been working on and hopefully more new stand-up material.